Terror accused say Western bombing of Syria inspired 2016 Brussels attacks

Defendants at the 2016 Brussels attacks trial have described the anger they felt at the bombing of Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq by the international coalition, saying that anger motivated them to strike back.

Defendants Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini arrive for trial. via REUTERS - POOL

The nine defendants are being tried in connection with the 22 March 2016 suicide bomb attacks that killed 32 people at Brussels airport and the city's metro. The Islamic State jihadist group claimed responsability for the bombings.

Investigators believe the terrorist cell behind the attacks was linked to the group that carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks, which left 130 dead.

Sofien Ayari, already sentenced to 30 years in jail over the Paris attacks, went to fight with IS in 2014 before being wounded and hospitalised in the Syrian city of  Raqqa. 

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'Hatred and incomprehension'

"What I experienced in Raqqa was not a war, it was something else, it was bombs falling on men, women, children," the 29-year-old Tunisian told the court. 

"It was a tipping point for me. I had never felt such hatred, such incomprehension. I was mad with rage."

He claimed Western leaders showed "no consideration for human lives" in IS territory. 

"I have the impression that only one side is being condemned," he said. 

Ayari fled after the Paris attacks but was detained in the Belgian capital just before the Brussels bombings.

"When I see people suffering, of course it doesn't make me happy," he said of the victims of the Brussels attacks. 

"Today I am not at peace with everything." 

Attentats de Bruxelles : Salah Abdeslam dénonce « une injustice » et qualifie son frère d’« exemple » https://t.co/BZUaFwBzEV pic.twitter.com/Q2r5sUqXPl

— La Voix du Nord (@lavoixdunord) April 5, 2023

Paris attacks terrorist Abdeslam condemns West's 'disastrous decisions'

Co-defendant Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving member of the unit that carried out the Paris attacks, linked his actions to "disastrous decisions" taken by the heads of the anti-IS coalition. 

Like Ayari, Abdeslam was in custody on the day of the Brussels attacks and denies being involved. 

"The pilots of the planes over Raqqa and Mosul will never find themselves in the dock to answer for their abominable acts, they have been rewarded," said the 33-year-old Frenchman, who never set foot in Syria.

He said "the wave of attacks in the West was not carried out to raise the black flags of IS on European territory, but in response to the bombings".

Another suspect Bilal El Makhoukhi – a 34-year-old Belgian-Moroccan former IS fighter – said that in Syria he had spent "the best moments of his life, even if it was hard". 

"I felt more alive there than here. I felt I was serving a purpose," he said. 

The questioning of the defendants is set to continue until late Thursday. 

(with wires)